PAM, 
Ml  SC. 


^traigbt  Ernes 


in 


Cijurd;  jftnaiue 


Rev.  FRANK  OTIS  BALLARD,  D£>. 


INDIANAPOLIS,  IND. 


A 

* 


Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  Rindge  Literature  Department 
150  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


Copyrighted,  1904 


Straight  Lines  in  Church  Finance 


By  Rev.  FRANK  OTIS  BALLARD,  D.D. 

The  Church  has  put  her  hand  to  a  plow  from 
which  she  cannot  look  back;  that  plow  is  the 
conquest  of  this  world  for  Christ.  She  has 
planted  her  missions  on  every  shore;  she  has 
placed  her  colleges  and  printing  presses  in  the 
strategic  centers  of  the  pagan  world;  she  has 
proclaimed  to  the  heathen  that  they  are  un¬ 
done  and  hopeless  without  the  Gospel  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  now  she  has  no  elec¬ 
tion.  She  must  evangelize  them.  It  is  con¬ 
tained  in  her  commission.  It  is  hound  up  with 
her  very  life.  To  turn  from  it  were  to  ab¬ 
dicate,  to  apostatize,  to  become  infamous.  I 
repeat  it.  Recession  from  this  work  would 
mean  for  the  Church  nothing  less  than  the  pre¬ 
vailing  of  the  gates  of  hell. 

It  is  no  child’s  play  she  has  undertaken.  She 
will  need  all  her  faith,  all  her  learning,  all  her 
prayer,  all  her  pecuniary  resources,  and  how 
she  will  be  straitened  until  it  is  accom¬ 
plished! 

I  speak  of  the  need  of  revenues  not  as  though 
this  were  not  a  spiritual  conflict.  Primarily 
it  is  that.  Yet  so  has  God  ordered  the  affairs 

2 


of  men  that  tremendous  sums  of  i^oney  will- be 
necessary.  No  matter  how  greats  zeal  the 
Church  may  show  toward  missions,  if  that  zeal 
does  not  crystallize  in  abundant  revenues-.,  it 
will  be  hardly  better  than  a  pantomime.  Let 
not  this  utterance  be  deemed  a  sordid  or  a 
faithless  thought.  We  do  but  follow  the 
Spirit’s  leading.  Christ  indeed  came  without 
purse  or  scrip.  He  paid  his  taxes  out  of  a 
fish’s  mouth,  and  he  lay  down  in  a  borrowed 
grave  (he  did  not  want  it  for  long  and  so  he 
borrowed  it).  But  at  the  side  of  that  manger 
where  he  saw  the  light  the  first  thing  pre¬ 
sented  was  gold,  and  it  stands  written  in 
prophecy,  “He  shall  live,  and  to  him  shall  be 
brought  the  gold  of  Sheba.”  Surely  the  time 
for  the  fulfillment  of  that  scripture  must  be 
drawing  nigh. 

Changing  Conditions 

There  is  an  orderly  unfolding  in  the  de¬ 
signs  of  God,  and  it  may  well  be  that  gold 
which  figured  so  little  in  the  operations  of  the 
apostolic  Church  that  Peter  could  say,  “Thy 
money  perish  with  thee,”  may  in  the  closing 
stages  of  this  same  kingdom  be  beaten  into  the 
very  wheels  and  axles  of  that  hurrying  chariot 
on  which  now  our  King  rides  forth  conquering 
and  to  conquer.  Certain  it  is  that  the  Church 
of  the  early  Christian  centuries,  whether  with 
revenue  or  without  it,  could  not  have  secured 
the  evangelization  of  all  races  for  the  obvious 
reason  that  the  conditions  were  not  ready. 

3 


The  globe  had  not  been  mapped.  Facilities  for 
transit  and  communication  were  not  at  hand. 
A  long  preliminary  work  had  to  be  done  before 
Christ’s  last  commission  could  be  fully  exe¬ 
cuted.  In  this  work  exploration  had  a  share, 
the  mastery  of  languages  and  the  art  of 
printing  had  a  share,  commerce  had  a  share, 
and — shall  I  say  it? — war  had  a  share.  Yes, 
even  the  God  of  battles  would  need  to  become 
a  John  the  Baptist  to  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

This  work  has  about  all  been  done.  The 
drama  so  slow  in  its  opening  scenes  now  hur¬ 
ries  to  its  close.  So  far  has  Providence  now 
forwarded  the  possibilities  of  the  kingdom  that 
now  at  length  it  may  be  said  for  the  first  time 
that  the  successful  evangelization  of  the  whole 
world  in  a  single  generation  is  solely  a  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  willingness  of  Christians  to  devote 
money  to  it.  It  looks  as  though  the  consecra¬ 
tion  of  our  substance  to  God  would  be  the  next 
great  movement  in  Christendom. 

The  Argument  of  Open  Doors 

A  little  time  ago  the  doors  of  many  nations 
were  fast  locked  against  the  ambassador  of  the 
cross.  Then  did  God’s  people  pray  and  plead 
to  God  to  open  the  doors,  and  those  doors  one 
after  another  creaked  on  their  rusty  hinges 
and  rolled  back,  and  to-day  the  kingdoms  and 
continents  of  the  world  are  like  the  heavenly 
city- — on  the  north  three  gates,  on  the  south 
three  gates,  on  the  east  three  gates,  and  on  the 
west  three  gates,  lifting  up  their  heads  for  the 

4 


King  of  Glory  to  come  in.  Tnen  there  was  a 
cry  to  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  “Send  forth 
laborers  into  the  harvest.”  In  answer  to  that 
prayer  you  have  to-day  the  World’s  Student 
Christian  Federation,  the  purpose  of  which  is 
to  make  the  colleges  and  the  universities  re¬ 
cruiting  and  training  stations  for  the  kingdom, 
with  a  view  to  a  systematic  evangelization  of 
the  whole  world.  This  federation  embraces 
twenty-four  different  countries,  with  an  entire 
student  population  of  600,000  and  a  Christian 
student  brotherhood  of  60,000  organized  into 
about  500  societies.  Thousands  of  Student 
Volunteers  have  signed  the  declaration,  “It  is 
my  purpose,  if  God  permits,  to  become  a  foreign 
missionary.”  These  young  men  and  women  are 
even  now  standing  on  tiptoe  looking  over  into 
the  white  harvest  field  of  the  world,  saying  to 
the  Church,  “Here  am  I;  send  me.”  And  the 
Church  has  not  the  money  to  send  them. 

A  Revival  of  Giving 

A  prince  of  Madagascar  came  lately  to  the 
Bishop  of  London  and  asked  beseechingly  for 
two  hundred  missionaries  for  his  people.  The 
Bishop  of  London  looked  into  the  treasury  and 
said,  “We  can  send  you  two.”  Poverty,  lack  of 
funds,  retrenchment,  this  is  the  trouble. 
Meantime  wealth  has  towered  up  like  a  moun¬ 
tain  and  threatens  to  turn  into  a  volcano  and 
bury  the  Church  with  its  ashes.  If  Midas  and 
Croesus  were  with  us  now  they  would  be  bring¬ 
ing  up  the  rear  of  the  procession  and  could 

5 


hardly  keep  out  of  the  poorhouse.  Why  has 
such  wealth  been  developed  if  not  to  be  wheeled 
into  line  for  the  mighty  work  that  Providence 
has  in  hand?  The  doors  have  been  opened. 
The  men  have  been  made  willing.  All  we  wait 
for  is  the  money  to  send  them  forth.  Any 
chess  player  might  see  with  half  an  eye  what 
should  be  the  next  move  on  the  chessboard. 
Whitefield  and  Wesley,  Finney  and  Moody  were 
well  and  in  their  places  as  the  very  angels  of 
God.  The  Church  will  always  need,  and  God 
grant  she  may  always  have,  such  evangelists, 
such  revivalists.  But  there  is  more  than  one 
string  on  the  harp  of  God,  and  I  verily  believe 
that  the  next  world-shaking  revival  is  going  to 
come  from  the  pew,  led  and  sustained  by  a 
devoted  ministry,  in  connection  with  the  bring¬ 
ing  in  of  our  substance  to  God  in  those  tithes 
and  offerings  prescribed  in  his  word.  It  must 
be  so.  The  time-locks  on  the  safes  of  God  were 
set  for  the  twentieth  century.  They  have 
opened;  the  gold  has  rolled  out  and  will  either 
fascinate  and  seduce  the  Church  and  drug  her 
into  idolatry,  or,  if  she  awakens,  quickly  turns, 
grasps  and  uses  it,  she  will  publish  the  name 
of  the  Redeemer  as  far  and  as  plentifully  as 
the  blessed  sun  scatters  his  healing  beams  be¬ 
fore  the  fleeting  night. 

The  Problem  of  Persuasion 

But  how  are  you  going  to  persuade  men  to 
devote  the  necessary  money  to  this  work?  It 
is  very  easy  to  talk  of  the  need  of  money.  It 

6 


would  be  easy,  too,  to  lay  a  financial  plan,  to 
draw  up  a  schedule  apportioning  these  funds 
to  be  raised  so  much  by  one  Church,  so  much 
by  another.  The  scheme  would  not  be  worth 
the  cards  it  was  printed  on.  The  author  of  it 
and  a  few  of  his  select  friends  would  be  the 
only  persons  who  would  take  any  interest  in  it. 
Men  do  not  act  in  this  world  in  view  of  the  un¬ 
derstanding  that  every  other  man  is  going  to 
act  in  the  same  way.  We  may  show  them  that 
great  good  would  be  accomplished  by  a  course 
of  conduct  provided  all  would  only  follow  it. 
But  they  do  not  believe  that  all  will  follow  it. 
The  proviso  throttles  the  proposition.  The 
Church  has  for  years  been  flooded  with 
schemes  and  proposals  to  give  a  penny  a  day 
or  a  nickel  a  week  to  missions,  and  every  blithe 
reformer  has  been  cheerful  to  show  what  a 
small  fraction  of  money  from  everybody  would 
advance  the  cause  he  would  see  advanced.  It 
has  all  been  an  endless  chain  of  inanity. 
Neither  general  secretary,  nor  Conference, 
nor  bishop,  nor  general  council  or  assembly 
can  make  an  apportionment  that  individuals 
will  pay  the  slightest  attention  to.  God  did  in¬ 
deed  set  some  in  the  Church,  first  apostles, 
second  prophets,  third  evangelists,  after  that 
pastors,  teachers,  helps  and  governments,  and 
the  like,  but  if  he  sent  any  to  be  financiers  we 
have  not  yet  discovered  them.  So  far  they 
seem  to  have  been  self-appointed.  They  ran, 
but  he  did  not  send  them,  and  all  their  words 
have  been  spoken  into  a  vacuum. 

7 


The  Proposal  as  to  Tithing 

Very  well — now  we  are  getting  near  the 
point.  I  hear  some  one  say,  “The  tithes  of 
God’s  people  would  be  a  resource  adequate  to 
this  work.  Let  the  people  bring  all  the  tithes 
into  the  storehouse  and  the  financial  part  of 
this  problem  is  already  solved.”  I  think  so  too. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  it.  If  members  of  the 
Church  would  tithe  their  incomes  conscien¬ 
tiously  and  bring  the  whole  tithe  undiminished 
and  unwasted  into  the  storehouse  the  world 
could  be  speedily  evangelized.  But  we  come 
nack  to  the  old  trouble;  what  is  to  induce  them 
to  do  it?  The  proposal  is  a  good  one,  but  can 
you  show  me  how  such  a  proposal  even  from 
you  will  become  epidemic  and  sweep  the 
Church?  How  do  you  propose  to  present  it — 
as  an  expedient,  as  a  plan?  And  is  it  believed 
that  as  such  it  will  gather  to  it  the  united 
action  of  the  Church?  Spare  your  hopes;  it 
never  will.  It  never  will  so  long  as  it  is  viewed 
as  a  good  plan,  or  even  the  best  possible  plan. 
Believe  me,  men  will  never  bring  the  whole 
tithe  into  the  Lord’s  treasury  until  they  can  be 
fully  persuaded,  each  man  for  himself,  that  it 
is  an  individual  duty  he  owes  God.  They  will 
not  do  it  on  a  general  scheme  of  universal 
cooperation,  and  if  they  shall  ever  do  it  it  will 
be  as  an  act  of  spiritual  religion  and  indi¬ 
vidual  devotion  in  which  God’s  honor  is  alone 
considered. 

The  question  then  returns  in  this  form:  “Are 

8 


there  grounds  for  believing  beyond  question 
that  the  first  tenth  of  all  our  gains  is  not  our 
own  at  all,  but  belongs  to  God  already  and  for 
that  reason  is  to  be  brought  into  his  treasury, 
irrespective  of  what  others  do,  or  do  not  do?” 
I  believe  that  to  be  the  true  state  of  the  case.  I 
believe  that  that  part  of  the  financing  of  the 
kingdom  which  consists  in  supplying  the  neces¬ 
sary  revenues  has  not  been  trusted  to  the 
hazards  of  our  invention  or  left  to  the  jets  of 
our  impulse,  but  has  been  sovereignly  ap¬ 
pointed  in  the  constitution  and  divine  laws  of 
the  kingdom  itself,  and  our  failures  have  been 
in  ignoring  it. 

Let  me  put  the  whole  doctrine  on  this  point 
into  one  sentence.  Resting  upon  the  plain 
proposition  that  one  tenth  of  all  our  increase  is 
God’s  and  not  our  own,  nor  in  any  wise  to  be 
used  or  appropriated  by  us  without  dishonesty, 
but  to  be  disposed  of  as  God  directs;  and  find¬ 
ing  that  he  directs  that  it  be  brought  into  his 
treasury  since  it  stands  in  plain  words,  “Bring 
the  whole  tithe  into  the  storehouse,”  the  reason 
annexed  being,  “that  there  may  be  meat  in 
mine  house” — we,  his  people,  are  upon  the 
literal  fulfillment  of  this  command  and  pur¬ 
pose  to  bring  the  tithe  into  the  Church  as  un¬ 
questionably  God’s  house,  though  it  has  long 
lain  waste,  and  to  do  this  as  an  act  of  spiritual 
religion,  in  full  reliance  upon  the  promise  at¬ 
tached  to  the  command  that  God  may  be 
honored  and  Christ’s  kingdom  may  surely 
come. 


9 


Tithing  is  not  Giving 

Under  this  view  it  is  necessary  to  have 
clearly  in  mind  that  tithing  is  not  giving.  The 
Bible  designates  two  sources  of  revenue — 
tithes  and  freewill  offerings.  Tithes  are  ob¬ 
ligatory  and  are  paid.  Offerings  are  voluntary 
and  are  donated.  In  tithing  we  are  on  the 
plane  of  justice.  We  bring  the  tithe  to  God 
because  it  is  his,  not  because  we  hear  that  he 
needs  it  in  his  business.  It  is  not  that  ass’s 
colt  of  which,  as  we  are  loosing  it,  we  may  say 
to  the  proper  owners,  “The  Lord  hath  need  of 
him,”  but  it  is  the  Lord’s  own  about  which  he 
does  not  have  to  give  an  account  to  any  man. 
It  is  his.  Our  withholding  it  is  a  breach  of 
justice,  not  a  defect  of  generosity.  In  failing 
to  bring  the  tithe  we  are  guilty,  not  of  stingi¬ 
ness,  but  of  robbery.  It  is  dishonest.  Yet 
Christians  generally  do  not  so  view  it.  They 
rather  feel,  even  when  they  devote  ten  per 
cent,  that  they  are  making  a  voluntary  con¬ 
tribution.  They  are  like  the  boastful  and 
swelling  Pharisee  who  said,  and  said  in  a 
strutting  spirit,  “I  give  tithes.”  But  our 
Saviour  did  not  use  words  so  carelessly.  He 
said,  “Ye  pay  tithes.”  When  it  comes  to  free¬ 
will  offerings  which  are  over  and  above  the 
tithes,  those  are  quite  a  different  matter  and 
should  be  considered  by  themselves. 

An  Obligation  for  Christians 

But  what  we  must  ask  now  is  the  question 
whether  the  paying  God  the  tithe  is  really  for 

10 


Christians  an  obligation.  In  other  words,  is  it 
in  force  now  just  as  it  was  before  the  Advent, 
and  apparently  long  before  the  Hebrew  com¬ 
monwealth,  or  did  Christ’s  coming  do  away 
with  the  necessity  for  it  and  the  obligation  to 
pay  it?  This  is  a  vital  question,  and  I  may  be 
permitted  to  enumerate  some  reasons  for  be¬ 
lieving  that  the  duty  is  incumbent  upon  us  now 
quite  as  much  as  ever. 

First:  If  it  be  not  so,  if  God  does  not  re¬ 
quire  the  tithe  to  be  paid  and  as  an  obligation 
into  his  treasury,  then  it  follows  that  his  king¬ 
dom  on  earth  has  no  financial  foundation  at  all. 
Certainly  gifts,  alms,  donations,  basket  collec¬ 
tions,  and  such  things  cannot  be  called  a  finan¬ 
cial  foundation.  Now  look  at  the  facts.  We 
all  acknowledge  that  God  has  conceived  and 
brought  forth  on  this  globe  a  kingdom  called 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  but  existing  on  the 
earth  with  a  work  to  do  greater  than  ever  a 
nation  had,  with  functions  more  varied,  more 
multiplied,  and  more  delicate  than  any  civil 
government  ever  had,  with  conquests  to  make 
more  extensive  than  any  king  ever  dreamed  of 
undertaking,  a  kingdom,  more  stable  than  any 
other.  This  kingdom,  depending  primarily 
upon  subtle  spiritual  forces,  is  nevertheless 
obliged  to  do  its  work  against  mundane  fric¬ 
tions  and  amid  elements  that  are  material.  Let 
us  ask  whether  it  is  conceivable  that  God  has 
brought  into  existence  such  an  organism  and 
has  never  thought  about  financing  it,  but  has 
thrown  it  out  a  waif  into  the  world  to  be  sus- 

11 


tained  or  to  be  neglected  as  men  see  fit,  and 
sustained  if  sustained  at  all  by  sporadic  dona¬ 
tions,  solicitations,  beggings,  coaxings,  whin- 
ings  alms,  and  other  such  suctional  processes? 
Does  not  this  seem  like  a  sickly  assumption? 
It  certainly  does.  Yet  this  sickly  assumption 
has  lain  at  the  root  of  too  many  of  our  opera¬ 
tions  as  churchmen.  How  we  have  begged  as 
though  we  were  Philippine  friars!  We  have 
not  blushed  to  coax  men  for  a  pittance  of  that 
which  the  Bible  tells  them  is  already  God’s. 
We  have  had  on  hand  a  system  of  mingled  mer¬ 
chandise  and  beggary  supplemented  with  real- 
estate  ventures  such  as  selling  divisions  of 
consecrated  space  in  the  house  of  prayer,  with 
heavy  leanings  in  times  of  emergency  upon 
the  oyster,  the  Trilby  social,  the  ’possum  roast, 
the  pink  tea,  and  a  thousand  devices  innocent 
enough  in  themselves  considered,  it  may  be,  but 
utterly  to  be  despised  when  presented  as  the 
motive  power  of  that  magnificent  and  im¬ 
pregnable  piece  of  splendor  which  we  call  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

Pkesent-day  Gifts 

And  is  this  what  we  call  the  liberty  of  the 
new  dispensation?  And  how  has  it  done  its 
work?  How  speeds  the  Gospel?  Where  are  our 
converts?  How  is  our  conquest  prospering? 
Let  us  see.  The  Baptist  Church  taken  as  a 
whole  secured  from  its  people  in  1903  for  the 
purpose  of  foreign  missions  the  sum  of  78 
cents  a  member;  the  Presbyterian  Church  for 

12 


tlie  same  great  cause,  $1.30  a  member;  the 
Canadian  Methodists,  88  cents  a  member;  the 
Methodist  Church  in  the  United  States  for  all 
missions,  home  and  foreign,  72  cents  a  member. 
Or,  to  sum  it  up,  the  average  Christian  devoted 
92  cents  in  one  year  to  the  cause  confessedly 
closer  to  the  heart  of  Christ  than  any  other. 
Ninety-two  cents  in  a  year’s  time  to  fill  the 
earth  with  the  glory  of  God  as  the  waters  cover 
the  sea!  And  in  missionary  conventions  some 
have  thought  it  the  pinnacle  of  zeal  to  ask  the 
Church  to  come  up  to  two  dollars  a  year  per 
member.  To  such  a  comedy  of  faith  have  we 
fallen!  From  these  facts  are  we  not  warranted 
in  saying  that  if  tithing  is  not  an  obligation 
Christians  owe,  the  kingdom  to  which  they  be¬ 
long  is  without  any  financial  foundation  at  all? 

Old  and  New  Testament  Standards 

Well,  now,  in  the  second  place,  suppose  a 
Christian  without  offending  against  his  God 
may  spend  on  self-interests  more  than  nine 
tenths  of  his  earnings,  then  it  follows  that  it  is 
lawful  for  a  Christian  to  be  more  selfish  than 
was  lawful  for  an  Israelite.  Less  than  one 
tenth  an  Israelite  could  not  consecrate  to  God 
without  robbery.  If,  then,  a  Christian  may 
lawfully  consecrate  less,  his  religion  leaves  him 
“more  earthly  without  guilt,  less  noble  without 
reproach.”  William  Arthur,  of  England,  has 
stated  it  in  this  way:  The  Israelite  was  blessed 
with  a  religion  which  checked  his  earthward 
tendency  at  the  very  least  to  this  extent,  that 

13 


one  tenth  went  to  sacred  things;  but  is  the 
Christian  at  liberty  to  devote  to  his  God  what¬ 
ever  proportion  he  will,  from  the  nearest  ap¬ 
proach  to  nothing  upward,  so  that  if  one  part 
with  a  tenth,  another  with  a  ninetieth,  and 
another  with  a  thousandth  part,  they  differ  not 
in  this,  that  one  is  liberal,  the  other  covetous, 
and  the  third  a  wretch,  but  in  this,  that  one  is 
liberal,  the  other  less  liberal,  and  the  third  still 
less  so,  each  of  them  practicing  a  voluntary 
virtue  only  in  various  degrees?  If  this  is  so, 
then  is  Christianity  to  be  charged  with  lower¬ 
ing  the  standard  of  a  virtue.  Are  we  quite  pre¬ 
pared  for  this  conclusion?  “I  do  not  mean,” 
you  say,  “that  we  are  at  liberty  to  devote 
money  by  mere  chance  without  fixing  some 
principle;  I  only  mean  that  we  are  not  bound 
to  a  tenth.”  Not  bound  to  a  tenth?  No,  most 
surely  we  are  not  bound  to  a  tenth.  No  pre¬ 
cept  of  the  Gospel,  no  principle  of  the  law,  even 
so  much  as  glances  in  the  direction  of  binding 
us  to  a  tenth.  But  is  it  possible  you  mean 
something  you  do  not  say?  Is  it  possible  that 
when  you  speak  of  not  being  bound  to  a  tenth 
you  mean  we  are  at  liberty  to  make  up  our 
minds  to  devote  not  a  tenth  but  something  less? 
If  so,  then  again  we  are  landed  in  contradic¬ 
tion.  The  tenth  was  never  anything  more  than 
God’s  minimum.  It  is  the  back-stop  he  would 
put  to  our  selfishness,  saying  to  it,  “Thus  far 
shalt  thou  come  and  no  farther,  and  here  shall 
thy  proud  waves  be  stayed.” 

“But  does  not  the  New  Testament  say,  ‘As  a 

14 


man  purposetli  in  his  heart,  so  let  him  give’?” 
Certainly  it  agrees  perfectly  with  the  Old  Tes¬ 
tament  in  that.  We  read  in  Dent.  16.  17, 
“Every  man  shall  give  as  he  is  able,  according 
to  the  blessing  of  the  Lord  thy  God  which  he 
hath  given  thee.”  Again,  “Thou  shaft  keep  the 
feast  with  a  tribute  of  a  freewill  offering  of 
thine  hand,  which  thou  shall  give  unto  the 
Lord,  according  as  the  Lord  thy  God  hath 
blessed  thee.”  Again,  in  Exod.  35.  21,  “They 
came,  every  one  whose  heart  stirred  him  up, 
and  every  one  whom  his  spirit  made  willing, 
and  brought  the  Lord’s  offering  to  the  work  of 
the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation.”  Here  and 
in  many  other  places  in  the  Old  Testament  the 
idea  of  voluntariness  is  set  forth  as  actuating 
God’s  people.  Yet  we  know  that  at  that  very 
time  the  tithe  was  in  force  as  an  actual  com¬ 
mand  and  was  being  practiced  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  these  counsels  applied  to  such  over¬ 
plus  of  generosity  as  extended  beyond  the 
tithe.  If,  then,  the  free  principle  of  voluntari¬ 
ness,  of  spontaneity,  of  purposing  gifts  in  your 
heart,  coexisted  in  the  Old  Testament  with  the 
duty  of  bringing  in  the  tithes,  how  can  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  this  same  idea  in  the  other  Testa¬ 
ment  be  construed  as  abrogating  tithes? 

Only  One  System  of  Finance 

The  truth  is,  the  Bible  presents  not  two  but 
one  system  of  finance  for  the  kingdom  of  God. 
As  the  Old  Testament  agrees  with  the  New 
concerning  generosity  in  giving  gifts,  so  the 

15 


New  Testament  agrees  with  the  Old  in  the 
justice  of  paying  obligations.  Our  Saviour 
would  not  allow  even  such  great  duties  as  judg¬ 
ment,  mercy,  and  faith  to  abolish  the  duty  of 
even  the  smallest  tithes.  He  said,  “These 
ought  ye  to  have  done,  and  not  to  leave  the 
other  undone.”  And  as  touching  tithes  the 
New  Testament  has  another  clear  testimony  in 
Hebrews,  chapter  seven,  “And  here  men  that 
die  receive  tithes;  but  there  he  receiveth  them, 
of  whom  it  is  witnessed  that  he  liveth,”  mean¬ 
ing  by  the  pronoun  the  type  of  Christ  in  his 
perpetual  priesthood. 

It  was  not  necessary  to  reenact  a  law  which 
was  universal  among  all  tribes  and  nations, 
which  was  practiced  before  the  giving  of  the 
law  and  more  widely  than  the  dispersion.  It 
was  amplified  in  the  law,  and  not  only  so,  but 
emphasized  by  the  prophets,  those  most 
spiritual  teachers  of  the  Old  Testament.  The 
only  thing  which  makes  tithing  seem  provin¬ 
cial  to  us  is  that  we  have  stupidly  and  wickedly 
discontinued  it  in  the  practice  of  our  Churches. 
The  only  thing  against  it  is  that  it  is  amplified 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Where  would  you  have 
it  amplified?  It  is  there  made  so  clear  that 
there  is  no  need  to  reamplify  it.  We  go  back 
to  the  Old  Testament  for  much  of  the  ethics  of 
law  and  jurisprudence.  We  go  back  to  the  Old 
Testament  for  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  The 
only  star  created  in  the  gospels  is  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem,  that  blessed  star,  dearest  of  them 
all.  We  go  back  to  the  Old  Testament  for  the 

16 


Sabbath,  and  would  not  have  any  unless  we  did. 
For  I  would  have  you  note  that  if  the  tithe  is 
left  without  a  New  Testament  foundation  the 
Sabbath  is  still  more  so.  Now,  such  parts  of 
the  Old  Testament  have  passed  away  as  were 
clearly  typical  and  as  such  were  fulfilled  in 
Christ,  like  the  bloody  sacrifices  and  the  orders 
and  functions  of  the  Levitical  priesthood.  But 
there  are  elements  in  that  revelation  which  are 
neither  typical  nor  temporary,  but  of  the 
nature  of  permanent  institutes  of  humanity. 
Such  are  the  laws  relating  to  time  and  money. 
These  two  things  are  broad,  secular  elements 
in  the  world’s  daily  life.  Can  we  suppose  that 
a  divine  law  would  not  legislate  upon  them? 
Certainly  it  would.  And  how  has  it  done  so? 
Of  our  time  God  requires  one  seventh;  of  our 
means  one  tenth.  There  is  a  strict  parallel: 
“The  Sabbath  is  the  Lord  thy  God’s,”  and  “All 
the  tithe  of  the  land,  whether  of  the  seed  of 
the  land  or  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree,  is  the 
Lord’s,  it  is  holy  unto  the  Lord.”  These  two 
requirements  are  exactly  alike.  The  one  is  a 
perpetual  memorial  of  our  labor.  The  other  is 
a  perpetual  measure  of  our  rest.  They  are  both 
for  the  sake  of  man,  yet  they  are  the  require¬ 
ments  of  God.  He  has  not  asked  us  by 
unanimous  resolution  to  apportion  the  Sabbath 
to  him.  He  claims  it.  He  has  not  asked  us  to 
enact  a  law  apportioning  the  tithe  to  him. 
He  claims  it.  “The  tithe  is  the  Lord’s.”  In 
any  dispensation  where  God’s  sovereignty  re¬ 
mains  undisputed  these  will  remain  as  testi- 

17 


monies  to  it.  The  Church  does  not  levy  taxes, 
but  it  is  her  duty  to  make  the  position  God 
takes  on  the  subject  of  his  honor  in  connection 
with  our  gains,  and  to  remind  men  everywhere 
of  the  Lord’s  own  words,  “Ye  have  robbed  me, 
even  this  whole  nation.  But  ye  say,  Wherein 
have  we  robbed  thee?  In  tithes  and  offerings” 
(Mai.  3.  8,  9). 

The  Lord’s  Treasury  is  His  House 

Furthermore,  it  is  of  vital  importance  that 
men  be  shown  that  the  Lord  has  a  treasury  and 
that  it  is  his  house.  Whatever  we  do  with  our 
freewill  offerings,  the  Lord’s  tithe  is  to  be 
brought  into  the  Lord’s  treasury.  The  Church 
is  poor  because  the  Lord’s  servants  either 
spend  the  tithe  on  themselves  or  else  if  they 
devote  it  they  distribute  it  from  their  own 
houses  in  a  wide,  a  miscellaneous,  and  too  fre¬ 
quently  in  a  wasteful  charity.  The  tithe  is  not 
for  any  and  every  good  purpose,  but  is  sacred 
to  the  great  purpose  of  the  spiritual  kingdom, 
the  chief  part  of  which  is  the  conquest  of  the 
nations  for  Christ.  The  Church,  and  not  the 
private  individual,  is  the  trustee  of  this  work. 
She  has  the  commission.  She  only  can  do  the 
work,  and  she  will  be  able  to  do  it  whenever 
God’s  people  cease  the  wandering  distributing 
of  sacred  money  and  bring  it  all,  undiminished 
and  unwasted,  into  the  Lord’s  treasury.  “Ye 
shall  not  do  after  all  the  things  we  do  here 
this  day,  every  man  whatsoever  is  right  in  his 
own  eyes”— “but  unto  the  place  which  the  Lord 

18 


your  God  shall  choose  to  put  him  name  there, 
even  unto  his  habitation  shall  ye  seek,  and 
thither  shall  ye  bring  your  tithes”  (Deut.  12). 
And  again,  “Bring  ye  the  whole  tithe  into  the 
storehouse” — bring  them,  do  not  send  them — 
“that  there  may  be  meat  in  mine  house” 
(Mai.  3).  When  this  is  done  the  ends  of  the 
earth  will  become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord 
and  of  his  Christ,  and  the  windows  of  heaven 
will  open  and  pour  out  measureless  blessing 
upon  the  Church. 

Objections  to  Tithing  Discussed 

Now  for  some  obstacles  in  the  way  of  tithing. 
First,  they  say  the  poor  cannot  afford  it.  But 
there  is  a  blessing  in  it.  Why  should  the  poor 
man  be  deprived  of  that  blessing?  He  has 
little  enough  now.  Is  it  thought  that  God  can 
meet  the  faith  of  his  rich  servant  but  cannot 
sustain  his  poor  servant  in  his  faith?  How¬ 
ever,  it  is  not  the  poor  man  who  says  this.  It 
is  the  prosperous  rich  man  who  is  so  tenderly 
trying  to  shield  his  weaker  brother  lest  God’s 
law  may  rest  too  heavily  upon  him.  And  why? 
Because  he  sees  what  it  would  mean  if  he  him¬ 
self  tithed.  What  he  really  wants  to  say  is 
this:  “Do  you  know  what  you  are  preaching? 
Why,  sir,  if  I  brought  a  tenth  of  my  gains  to 
God  I  would  bring  in  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year!”  It  does  seem  hard  to  tithe  if  one  seems 
to  have  but  a  bare  living,  yet  God  has  promised 
to  bless  us  if  we  do  it.  You  will  recall  Jacob’s 
vow:  “If  thou  wilt  give  me  bread  to  eat  and 

19 


raiment  to  put  on,  I  will  surely  give  a  tenth  to 
thee.”  Now  bread  and  raiment  are  a  “bare 
living,”  and  so  Jacob’s  proposition  was  to  de¬ 
vote  the  tenth  of  a  bare  living  to  Jehovah.  He 
did  so,  and  was  prospered  far  beyond  his  ex¬ 
pectations.  The  poor  man  can  ill  afford  to  be 
idle  one  day  in  seven,  yet  God  asks  it  of  him 
and  blesses  him  in  doing  it,  particularly  if  he 
does  it  as  unto  him. 

“But,”  says  another,  “I  do  not  take  such  a 
narrow  view.  I  believe  the  tenth  is  God’s,  and 
more  too.  I  go  further.  I  believe  all  I  have  is 
the  Lord’s.”  And  then  he  illustrates  his  prin¬ 
ciple  by  spending  it  all  on  himself.  Of  course 
all  is  God’s.  The  elder  scriptures  are  very 
careful  to  assert  God’s  right  of  eminent  do¬ 
main,  and  the  largest  expressions  of  it  extant 
are  in  the  Old  Testament:  “The  earth  is  the 
Lord’s,  and  the  fullness  thereof;”  “For  every 
beast  of  the  forest  is  mine,  and  the  cattle  upon 
a  thousand  hills;”  “If  I  were  hungry  I  would 
not  tell  thee,  for  the  world  is  mine.”  This  is 
Old  Testament  doctrine.  Now,  what  is  the 
tithe?  It  is  simply  a  tangible  token  and  tes¬ 
timony  that  all  is  God’s.  As  an  evidence  that 
we  think  all  is  God’s,  he  asks  for  the  current 
devotion  of  a  definite  per  cent.  He  says  ten. 
Why  he  should  require  a  seventh  of  our  time 
and  only  a  tenth  of  our  toil  I  do  not  know. 
He  is  the  great  Arithmetician  of  the  universe, 
and  the  chemist  knows  and  astronomer  knows 
that  he  is  not  ashamed  to  descend  into  details 
and  name  times  and  seasons  and  proportions 

20 


and  equivalents.  And  he  would  not  impoverish 
his  people  either.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we 
are  actually  better  off  with  six  days  and  nine 
tenths  after  religiously  devoting  one  day  and 
one  tenth  to  God  in  spiritual  worship  than  we 
would  have  been  with  the  whole.  This  is  be¬ 
cause  there  is  a  living  God.  The  most  ruinous 
influence  in  society  is  the  general  distrust  of 
the  vigilance  of  a  Power  who  defends  the 
right.  If  obeying  these  laws  could  teach  us  to 
trust  him,  their  issuance  would  be  justified  on 
that  ground  alone,  and  no  doubt  that  is  largely 
their  design. 

One  objection  more:  “I  shall  not  be  able  to 
ascertain  what  my  tithe  would  be.  My  busi¬ 
ness  is  so  complex,  full  of  credits,  running 
accounts,  losses  by  bad  debts,  long  running  in¬ 
vestments,  and  the  like  that  I  am  not  able  to 
tell  just  what  my  income  for  a  given  period 
would  be.”  I  see  the  point,  and  it  is  well  taken, 
but  may  I  ask  him  a  question?  Suppose  the 
law  were  reversed;  suppose  the  Bible  ordained 
that  the  Church  should  pay  the  merchant,  the 
man  with  many  irons  in  the  fire,  a  sum  of 
money  equal  to  one  tenth  of  his  net  profits 
upon  being  informed  correctly  how  much  that 
was.  Let  me  ask  how  long  would  he  be  finding 
out  what  his  profits  were? 

The  Pboof  of  Tithing  is  the  Doing  of  It 

But  let  me  not  weary  you  with  proofs.  The 
best  proof  of  this  duty  is  the  doing  of  it.  If 
you  really  want  to  prove  it,  the  Bible  tells  you 

21 


how.  “Bring  the  whole  tithe  (R.  V.)  into  the 
storehouse,  and  prove  me  now  herewith”— -that 
is,  by  bringing  it  in — “whether  I  will  not  open 
you  the  windows  of  heaven  and  pour  you  out 
a  blessing  until  there  shall  not  be  room  enough 
to  receive  it.”  It  is  well  understood  that  the 
object  on  which  the  tithe  was  expended, 
namely,  the  visible  and  material  temple,  has 
gone.  It  has  been  taken  away,  but  it  has  been 
replaced  by  the  broad  and  more  magnificent 
undertaking  of  the  Christian  Gospel.  To  this 
undertaking,  and  not  to  private  charity,  the 
tithe  is  sacred.  The  trouble  is  God  cannot 
get  his  hands  on  his  own.  We  loudly  proclaim 
it  to  be  his,  and  then  in  our  vanity  and  way¬ 
wardness  we  scatter  it  where  we  will.  We  ob¬ 
tain  a  reputation  for  private  generosity,  but  the 
Church  still  sits  a  poor  beggar  by  the  wayside 
and  hardly  a  dog  to  lick  her  sores.  We  dwell 
in  our  ceiled  houses,  but  God’s  house  lies  waste. 
We  are  not  ashamed  to  make  grand-stand  plays 
with  our  Lord’s  money  and  let  his  missions 
languish.  We  are  robbing  God  and  we  are  lean 
in  our  own  souls.  We  rob  God  and  therefore 
must  only  toy  and  trifle  with  the  work  of  sub¬ 
duing  the  world  under  the  sway  of  the  Re¬ 
deemer.  God  pity  us! 

A  great  District  Conference  near  the  center 
of  population  gave  for  all  purposes  during  the 
year  $410,000.  We  do  not  know  what  her  tithe 
would  have  been.  There  are  52,000  members 
in  that  Conference.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  statis¬ 
tician  of  labor  for  the  United  States,  informs 

22 


us  woman’s  average  earnings  are  $298  a  year 
in  this  country.  That  would  be  a  ridiculously 
low  estimate  for  the  earnings  of  the  members 
of  a  great  and  prosperous  Church  in  one  of  the 
most  thriving  and  populous  portions  of  the 
country,  yet  even  at  that  absurdly  low  estimate 
of  $298  a  year  each  they  would  earn  in  a  year 
$15,000,000,  and  the  tithe  of  it  was  $1,500,000. 
They  brought  in  $410,000,  leaving  them  in  debt 
to  God  on  the  operations  of  that  year  alone  in 
that  one  District  Conference  $1,090,000.  Now, 
recollect  that  over  this  same  territory  is  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  the  Baptist  Church,  the 
Episcopalian  Church,  all  derelict  in  the  same 
or  in  a  corresponding  measure.  Is  it  any  won¬ 
der  that  Christ  is  not  seeing  of  the  travail  of 
his  soul? 

Spiritual  Reasons  and  Financial  Revenues 

Finally,  financial  revenues,  greatly  as  they 
are  needed,  are  not  all  the  reason  of  the  law. 
It  was  given  also  for  a  reason  intensely 
spiritual.  It  was  given  then  and  it  is  needed 
now  as  an  aid  to  faith.  How  vague  God  seems 
to  men!  How  real  money  is  to  them!  It  is  as 
if  our  heavenly  Father  had  said,  “I  will  couple 
the  two  together.  I  will  take  a  share  in  every 
dime  and  dollar  they  earn  or  in  any  way  hon¬ 
estly  acquire.  I  will  ask  them  to  bring  it  in 
person  to  me  every  week.  It  will  afford  them  a 
good  way  to  come  near  to  me.  It  will  draw  to 
a  focus  the  rays  of  their  scattering  faith.  The 
tithe  will  make  a  good  lens  for  them  to  see  me 

23 


with.  It  will  prevent  absent-mindedness  in 
worship.  It  is  going  to  tax  their  courage,  but 
I  will  stand  by  them.  I  will  bless  them.  By 
this  means  I  will  sanctify  their  labor  and  set 
up  the  cross  in  the  very  market  place.”  And  it 
does  work  so.  Wherever  men  are  obedient  to 
this  beneficent  command  the  effect  is  purifying 
to  their  commerce  and  hallowing  to  their 
hearts.  As  prayer  and  praise  are  good  means 
of  having  intercourse  with  the  Unseen  One,  so 
is  the  effort  to  honor  him  with  our  substance. 

So  tithing  does  two  things:  it  makes  a  better 
and  a  happier  Christian,  and  it  so  replenishes 
the  treasury  of  the  Church  that  she  can 
evangelize  all  the  world.  If  it  is  good  for  these 
two  things,  do  you  think  it  likely  divine  wis¬ 
dom  would  have  abolished  it  for  some  hap¬ 
hazard  plan  or  scheme  of  ours?  By  no  means. 
It  only  remains  to  practice  it  and  to  preach  it. 
Let  those  who  tithe  bring  the  whole  tithe  into 
the  Church,  and  thence  let  it  flow  out  to  make 
glad  the  city  of  our  God;  so  shall  God  be 
honored,  and  Christ  shall  have  the  heathen  for 
his  inheritance  and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
world  for  his  possession. 

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